A Lark Ascending

There are ways performers can make a bit more. Put out the main album in every format possible. But have a 'deluxe' version on your own site at a slight premium with extra gubbins (pictures, sleeve notes etc), outtakes etc. This will pull in the completists and the dedicated fanbase. (this is already being dome by some) One sign of the times. The new Led Zeppelin remasters - not long ago something like that would have been CD/vinyl only for a few months, hitting download/streaming once the physical sales started to decline. They went straight to streaming with all their (aural) gubbins.

I agree. But why are performers not getting a fair share? I'd gladly pay considerably more for my Spotify contract (far cheaper than what I used to spend on albums). As Bragg argues, the major record companies seem to be major causes of this. A couple of recent articles: US music licensing laws 'arcane and dysfunctional,' says RIAA chairman US music copyright: 'It’s basically just a bunch of people fighting over money' US examples but the problem of adjusting to new technology and allowing performers to make a living from their work is a worldwide issue.

Spotify is also OK for 'focused' listening if you are not that bothered about sonics (I'm unfortunate/fortunate enough to hear no difference when listening between mp3/CD/streaming...I do hear a difference with vinyl...that bloody surface noise!) Having 'the best possible sound' does not automatically make you a better listener. I've known many a person with state of the art equipment but only a superficial interest in music (and many, like yourself, with a passion for the music - but it's not the type of technology that creates the passion). There is an unfortunate tendency among some older listeners who grew up under earlier technologies to assume that as younger listeners have easy access to music, they can't be listening 'properly'.

You'll know the paradigm has definitely shifted if Robert Fripp signs up to Spotify.

Read the original article and the Billy Bragg one later on. They both claim that many performers 'are' making a living from streaming but they've had to change the way they do things in order to achieve that. Much the same as the rest of us who have either had, are having or are soon to have our ways of making a livings massively changed by the impact of technology (it's not really hit education in Britain yet but I can see some major changes just over the horizon). The Bragg article also points the finger away from the streaming services and at the record labels: Maybe the emerging ways of making a living out of music favour the gigging musician over those who sit around in a studio for three years making their next album (technology has probably made that unnecessary too).

I suspect downloads are going to be one of those transitional technologies rather than 'the' new format. Interesting one here from last December (I think I posted a link to this or something similar at the time): Billy Bragg: labels not Spotify deserve streaming music payouts scrutiny There has clearly been a major disruption in the traditional way of distributing music and this has caused major problems for everyone involved on the production side - performers, record labels etc. But as with every technological innovation across history, eventually there is a readjustment. The printing press put a lot of monks out of business (Henry VIII just finished the job) and probably led to a deterioration in the quality of manuscript illumination. But in the end it created far more employment and a huge array of new skills. For as long as there are people who grew up under the older technologies and who find them hard to move away from, then there will be a market and the market will be supplied (boosted for a time by the sort of fetishism that has 16 year olds buying record decks and vinyl). But over time... I suspect we're only at the beginning of these changes...God knows how we'll be connecting with recorded music in ten years time...but it's good to see that many performers are adjusting to the changes and making them work for them rather than weeping about the good old days.

You probably won't have to bother. They'll be on Spotify (or another streaming site) eventually!

I still like my physical copy (burnt from a download is generally how I do it now; I know, it's old hat). But I find I'm using Spotify more and more. I now pay for the add-free version. Tremendous for what I like to do which is to explore things I don't know (old or new) rather than keep rebuying what I already have in the latest versions. If it's something I want to revisit a lot I'll download it. Though I suspect even that is part of the old model of 'ownership'. If I was 14 and starting anew I doubt if I'd bother with the downloading and burning.

The voice of the devil, I know, on this board (bring back the 78, preferably in a Japanese remaster!) but... Is streaming technology saving the music industry?

Came out this week. I'm watching it on a hired DVD.

Thanks, Kinuta, for the rec here. Just finished episode 5 tonight. Superb. Interesting to see a series where all the strong characters are women. Sarah Lancashire is superb in the main role.

They might have been made in that pressing plant that did a lot for Hyperion - something in the lacquer used to print info onto the disc got into the disc itself. A lot of Hyperion discs from the late-80s to early 90s suffered that way. I think I had a dozen or so. http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/bronzed.asp I've never had any other problem with CDs despite the scare stories in the 80s of CDs decomposing after 10 years.

My favourite LZ track. They get everything right on that one. That organ!

Just started this yesterday. Gripping opening chapter - I had no idea about the murderous power struggles in Serbia from the early 19thC onwards. Also like the way he differentiates between 'why?' and 'how?' As he says, historians tend to give the former greater attention yet this can often lead to a series of generalised 'factors'. Looking forward to seeing him demonstrate the 'how?' and what it reveals about the 'why?'

I heard a performance of William Mathias' Organ Concerto at least two decades back at the Three Choirs Festival (think it was Gloucester that year). Would love to hear a recording of that. I'd also be curious to hear Rutland Boughton's Brito-Wagnerian Arthur cycle of operas that were performed at the Glastonbury Festival (not that one) in the early 20thC. Probably not something you'd need to hear more than once but I'm curious. I'm not sure the scores even survive. The last two of the 5 weren't even performed.

Saw a TV programme based on this about ten years back - remember it had me punching the air going 'yes' again and again. Been meaning to read it since then and finally got round to it - utterly compelling. Polished off the first half yesterday and will finish today. A delicious skewering of the self-anointed British (and a bit beyond) intellectual elite of the early 20thC. Their silly vanities and their darker fantasies. Leonard Bast's revenge.

Up to episode 6/7. It was slow to start but has me well gripped. Not easy to follow - there are a lot of threads unravelling and criss-crossing simultaneously and it's hard to know where the essential story line is. Which makes it intriguing. Hard to know who the real bad guys are.

I just feel all the processing renders the guitar sound more homogeneous; less of that sense of texture you get on the 60s/early 70s recordings. I often find it hard to tell the guitar from the keyboards, especially on recordings where all the spaces seem filled with one sound or another. Though I'm sure people thought the same thing about electric guitars when they first came out. Maybe if you didn't start with the earlier sound you can hear the beauties of the current guitar playing more clearly.

If only the Tories hadn't cheated you out of a new hearing aid, right? Don't need one quite yet but when I do Led Zeppelin will be one of the bands I intend to sue. Can you wear headphones with a hearing aid? There's a problem I've not anticipated.

Well that would certainly scare off the dabblers, leaving it as the exclusive preserve of the initiates. *************** This article gives some suggestions that might explain why sitting attentively in a concert hall or jazz club is not that appealing to many young people: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27501984 Really like that one. Turns on its head the myth that young people are all morons, unable to focus like grown ups.

The initial Shakti band has some of my favourite JM. I also really like the Remembering Shakti bands but it's more for the other musicians and the overall band. I think JM plays well but I find it hard to focus on him because of that guitar sound.

I to 4 and PG for me. Still get a particular thrill from III & IV. I'm waiting for the Japanese XPRZ remasters. They've promised 25% more cardboard. Awesome!

A couple of (again anecdotal) observations from the world of folk music in Britain. Folk and jazz share some of the same audience and many of the grayhairs (myself included) would have grown up at a time when 'Jazz, Folk and Blues' were marketed to a common audience. When I go to local folk concerts the audience is predominately middle aged or older but always with a scattering of younger people. But when I go to Sidmouth, although there is a big greyhair audience, there are always lots of younger people bopping around. Might be that the 'festival' atmosphere with the chance to dip in and out, have a few beers etc is more appealing. I suspect a big part of it is that it has a high level of participatory events - workshops for everything from bouzouki playing to clog dancing; and especially the nightly dance/ceilidh events often with bands with a modern spin to them. Why, you can even bring your mates who might not much like folk music but won't have to sit sullen-faced through a formal concert experience. Thinking of it, the 'festival' atmosphere might well explain why Cheltenham and Brecon jazz festivals seem to have a more diverse audience age-wise. Secondly, the editorial in the most recent Froots (a British magazine covering folk/world music) seems to be relevant: http://www.frootsmag.com/content/issue/edsbox/ Now I find Ian Anderson (the one who stands on two legs) inspirational and infuriating by turns. That article displays both his open-earedness and willingness to take constant risks in programming obscure music; and his own prejudices that he projects as the way things are. But if only commentators on jazz and classical music could communicate with such passion instead of using their access to the media as an opportunity to broadcast the exclusiveness of their tastes, maybe, just maybe,.... His account of the joy of constant discovery, even if that excitement might fade quickly as a new favourite comes along, comes closest to explaining why I'm still absorbed in listening to music. Much as I love to revisit all the things I've known for years, it's the shock of the new (be it a brand new album from a brand new performer or a 16thC Mass that I've never heard before) that brings the greatest thrill. Sinking into a dotage of 'appreciating' a narrow body of music I have whittled down as being 'deep', 'timeless' or 'profound' and thus worthy of my wisdom holds no attraction at all. I suspect a greater focus on the former is the way to keeping life in any genre. [i love this line from the article "Sarah Coxson once described in these pages how a particular band swooped and turned as one, like a flock of starlings – murmuration music." Isn't that exactly what happens on those nights when everything seems to go right in a performance (and your own mood is completely in tune): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY

I see the Dedication Orchestra are doing a concert at 2.00 pm on Sat Nov 15th at the London JF. Includes Steve Beresford, Claude Deppa, Maggie Nicols, Evan Parker, Keith Tippett, Julie Tippetts and Jason Yarde. And Louis Moholo-Moholo, of course. http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/dedication-orchestra-84370 Might well make the trip if I can find something for the evening too - Dr John tributing Louis Armstrong doesn't really appeal (much as enjoy the records of both the tributor and the tributee). John Surman and Bergen Big Band at King's Place, possibly.

Wallander The 6 part final series. Pretty harrowing as the hero is gradually overtaken by Alzheimer's. The first episode is based round the final book, the other episodes seem newly written though I suspect the last episode (which hasn't been broadcast yet) will pick back up on the book. Also: Wasn't sure about this at first but it drew me in. Pretty bleak. Also started watching 'Happy Valley' but the series disappeared from the replayer the day after I saw episode 1. Have that on my rental list now. Looked pretty grim up North.